Flesh

by Laura Bickle

  Jesse’s face appears in the window. One hand is pressed to his mouth, and it looks like he’s stuffing his face with night crawlers.

  “Scoot over and drive,” he mutters around the goo.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Garth is not really a compliant sort of guy.

  He floors the gas on the truck.

  I hold my breath, flinching as I wait for an inevitable bullet or the sound of Jesse’s arm getting torn off. But Jesse has a tight grip on the door of the pickup. He clings to the open window like one of the floppy air dancers in front of the car dealership as Garth picks up speed, careening down the alley.

  The knife waves in my face but is pointing toward Garth. I shriek and grab it. I have no idea what makes me do it, but the idea of a sharp blade getting that close to my brother scares the shit out of me. Jesse’s hand is slippery, and the smell of decomposing flesh hits me in the face.

  Amanda lurches beside me, clawing for the knife. Her blond wig slides from her head, and we grapple for the weapon. Under the force of our four hands, we tear it free of Jesse’s viselike grip. The knife slides somewhere under the seat.

  But Jesse is tenacious. He’s got half his body in the truck, yowling like an aggravated tomcat. He’s stronger than me, much stronger, and I don’t know how much longer I can fight him off.

  I fumble with the latch and kick open the door with both feet as Garth streaks around another corner.

  This is poor timing on my part. Or maybe good. The door flops open with Jesse clinging to it. Both Jesse and the door go slamming into the side of a propane tank.

  Sparks fly, metal shrieking as the body and the door bounce against the skin of the tank. The door of the pickup truck shears off in a shower of sparks, but Garth puts the pedal to the metal and books it. The pickup continues down the alley, free.

  Something tremendous booms behind us. I yelp, jerking around to see the fireball spilling from the propane tank. A silhouette thrashes at the heart of it, incinerating slowly. It walks right, then left, arms waving and making a sound like an angry squirrel.

  “Oh my God,” Amanda breathes.

  Garth keeps driving, down two blocks, takes a sharp left, and abruptly stops the truck. “Get out,” he shouts.

  I blink at him, stunned.

  “Get out. Go back to the museum. I’ll come get you later.”

  Amanda and I scramble out of the truck onto the street, ducking into the shadow of a beautiful Victorian house. A concrete cherub perched on a fountain stares blankly at us as we stare blankly at my brother. He turns the pickup around on the sidewalk and heads back toward the sirens and the police.

  Amanda clutches my sleeve. “What’s he doing?”

  “I think he’s gonna tell the Sheriff what happened. Or at least some version of it. Come on.” I tug her farther back into the shadows between the buildings. We jog toward the river, to the bike path that loops around the riverbank, back toward the museum. I reach out and straighten Amanda’s wig. We jam our hands in our pockets, trying to look casual. Just two girls out for a walk.

  I cast surreptitious glances at the river, half-expecting Catfish Bob to be watching from the churning water and chuckling in that human-sounding voice I remember from the video online of his Amazonian brethren. But there is no sign of him. The water is thick as gravy, giving up nothing.

  Amanda and I sneak back into the museum, through the basement window. I shove some of the boxes aside to make room for her to hide. My hands are still shaking as I climb the steps to find Mr. Haskins.

  He’s still on the second floor, peering through his binoculars at the bait shop. Deputy Kevin and another deputy are still milling around the sidewalk before the bait shop, kicking at what looks like a Styrofoam box of worms. There’s a paramedic van from the volunteer fire department parked on the curb. The woman I saw earlier, the hostage who was in Jesse’s clutches, is now sitting on the ambulance bumper, wrapped in a blanket, with a paramedic crouching before her. At least she doesn’t seem to be hurt.

  “You missed all the action,” Mr. Haskins remarks, not even looking at me.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. He let the hostage go and then took off that way.” He points toward where Garth’s truck had been. “I heard the cops go chasing him. Then a bang. Maybe he had a getaway car that he wrecked somewhere.”

  “Wow. I, uh…I think I’m gonna go downstairs and clean up after the raccoon.”

  “Okay.” He sweeps the binoculars right and left, entranced by this little bit of drama in our sleepy town.

  I head back downstairs and automatically begin straightening up. I’m numb as I mechanically stack up the papers and put things back in boxes. My breath is tight and squeaky in the back of my throat. I feel Amanda’s eyes on me from the corner.

  “Can I help?” she asks.

  I shake my head, carefully tucking the perfume bottles back in their box. One of them is cracked, and I’m not sure whether to throw it out or put it back in the box. I leave it on the table to decide later.

  “What’s going to happen next?” She nibbles on her lower lip again. She really needs to stop that.

  It takes me a little while before I can speak. “I don’t know. I guess Garth will talk to the cops.”

  “What will he tell them?”

  “I don’t think he’ll tell them about you. He’s not that kind of dude. He’s a stand-up guy.”

  “Is he going to come back to get us?”

  “If he can.” God, I hope he can.

  We lapse into silence, listening to the overhead light buzzing. Initial relief at being alive washes over me, along with gratitude that nobody got killed. Nobody alive, anyway. Then, I start to wonder about what will really happen next. I suppose that my mother will come for me. That would be the last nail in my coffin. I don’t want to leave Amanda here, but I might have to. At some point, our ways have gotta part. I hope this isn’t the time.

  I finish clearing up the rest of the mess. Once I’m done, I sit down on the floor beside Amanda. The brick wall of the basement is cold against my back, and I’m at a loss. A spider tries to crawl up my jeans leg, but I brush it away.

  “Look, don’t worry about me,” Amanda says. “I don’t want you to get in any more trouble than you already are.”

  “I’m not going to leave you here. Well, not for long.” I grab the sleeve of the sweatshirt she’s wearing at the wrist. Her fingers lace in mine and we sit there, in the darkness.

  Tires roll up on the pavement, near the window. My heart leaps into my chest. Footsteps pause at the window, and Garth’s pinched face appears.

  “Garth!” I grin.

  He shakes his head, not looking happy. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand. Now.”

  *

  “Are you okay?”

  It takes two miles riding in the doorless truck before I find my voice.

  Riding without the door is a weird feeling. I tighten my seat belt and hang on to the dash, fearing that I’m going to slide out into the shrieking wind. Garth’s phone rings nonstop. He shuts it off and throws it in the glove box. That’s probably Mom.

  Garth grimaces at the windshield. “I talked to Sheriff Billings, gave him a statement. I told him that some dude tried to carjack me. Minus you and Amanda. You guys were never there.”

  From the back seat, Amanda’s exhalation is audible. “Thanks. I mean it.”

  “We gotta get out of here before Mom shows up to scrape up the ashes. That will keep her occupied for a while. Long enough for us to get some work done on this case,” Garth says, sounding very businesslike.

  “This case?” Amanda echoes from the jump seat.

  I smell something funny and turn back. Amanda has found the Styrofoam container full of worms left behind by Jesse. She’s digging her fingers into the cup and slurping down the earthworms like they’re spaghetti noodles. I make a face and turn back around.

  “Yeah. The Great Ghoul Invasion of Sumner County.” Garth turns down the state road, going in t
he opposite direction of home.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “We’re gonna check out the Cattell Estate.”

  My imagination runs wild at the suggestion. When I was digging through all those boxes at the museum, I imagined the Cattell Estate to be something grand. That it’s one of those houses on the maple-lined streets of town, an old Victorian with a tiny front yard full of ivy and wrought iron. My mind conjures leaded glass windows and slate shingles protecting a house of polished wood and ticking clocks. In my head, it smells like lavender and is covered in damask and doilies. I am quite sure that this is a place festooned with teacups, fringed carpets, and linens washed in rosewater.

  In reality, the Cattell Estate is no such thing.

  A dirt road peels away from the state route and worms into the woods. The pickup bounces over ruts in the road. I cringe when the mud splashes back at us until we come into view of the estate.

  The Cattell Estate is a ramshackle structure—I hesitate to call it a house—parked in the center of a clearing. It’s built of what looks like logs and duct tape. The moss is so thick on the roof that I can’t tell the color of the shingles.

  “Are you sure we’re in the right place?” I ask, reluctant to get out of the truck.

  “That’s the address from Google. I think I remember that the house was left to the caretaker who made the final arrangements.”

  “It has a caretaker? Sure doesn’t look that way.” I unbuckle myself and step down to the marshy ground, startling a chicken.

  “Hey, is that an outhouse?” Amanda points to a little shed beside the house.

  I glance at her, and she makes a grab for a chicken. My glance turns into a dirty look and she keeps her hands to herself.

  Garth heads to the front porch, and I fall into step behind him, keeping Amanda and the chickens in my peripheral vision. My brother hunts for a doorbell. Finding none, he raps sharply on the screen door. “Hello?”

  Nobody answers. I stare up at the daddy long legs creeping on the plywood porch ceiling, trying to ignore the lusty looks Amanda’s giving the chickens.

  “It looks like nobody’s home,” I mutter listlessly.

  Garth isn’t taking no for an answer. He pounds on the door. “Hey! Anybody home?”

  Aggression seems to produce a result, but not the one he intended. The unmistakable sound of a shotgun ratcheting comes from our left.

  “Hands up, folks.”

  I slowly lift my hands and turn.

  An old man is aiming a shotgun right at us. He’s a stringy dude in his seventies with long hair, and he’s wearing a suit of armor that looks like it was made from coffee cans.

  “Shit,” Garth swears. He has no charm.

  “Um, hi?” I say, waggling my fingers.

  The old man stares at me. “You ain’t selling Girl Scout Cookies.”

  “No, but we’ve actually met before.” Garth slowly steps in front of me, extending his hand. “I’m Garth Sulliven, from Sulliven’s Funeral Home.”

  The old man doesn’t move the gun, and Garth stops in his tracks. “Any particular reason why you brought that Devourer to my doorstep?” the man growls.

  I glance at Amanda. She’s holding a chicken by its tail feathers. She smiles sheepishly, displaying her needlelike teeth.

  “Put the chicken down,” the old man orders.

  Amanda gently sets the chicken down on the porch, and it scuttles away in an explosion of clucks.

  “So, uh, how do you know what she is?” I squeak.

  “Them eyes, black as coal. And I’m none too pleased about the way she’s droolin’ over my chicken with teeth like that.”

  “Can we talk?” Garth says. “We just want to talk.”

  “I ain’t got nothing to talk about.”

  “Mister…uh…I work at the museum.” My voice is tiny. “I found some things in the boxes you sent over, and I just want to know if there’s any more…any more…” I fish slowly in my pocket and come out with the catfish charm. I open my hand, palm up, to show it to him.

  “Any more on the history of the Devourers?” he finishes for me.

  “Well, yeah. ’Cause it seems like they’re becoming a problem.”

  The old man closes his eyes. “Fantastic.” He slings the shotgun over his shoulder and walks past us, clanking. “You can come in, but your shark-toothed friend has to keep her hands to herself.”

  I glare at Amanda. She laces her hands behind her back as we follow the old man into the house.

  “Does this place have electricity?” I blurt as we cross the threshold. It’s dark as hell in here.

  “No,” the old man says. “I like it old-school.” He cranks up an oil lamp on a scarred wooden table. A handful of plastic lawn chairs are arranged around the table. He gestures for us to sit. I sit at his right hand, Garth on his left, and Amanda the farthest away, across from him. She puts her hands on the table in full view.

  I perch on the edge of the chair to keep it from squeaking. “So we found some stuff in boxes from the museum. From the estate of Mrs. Cattell.”

  “Yep. I boxed up most of her stuff and sent it there. For posterity.” The old man props his shotgun in the corner, within easy reach. He tips back on the last two legs of his chair, takes a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, and lights one. He doesn’t offer to share.

  “You knew what it was in it, right? All that stuff about how the trappers came here and met…met the Devourers?” I ask.

  “Yep. Couldn’t leave it here. It needed to be where someone could find it, when…” he stares hard at Amanda. “…when they came back. Mind you, I expected it to be some time long after I was dead. I figured that the Historical Society would someday get around to rooting through all that shit and preserve the things that were of importance. If it was even real. Mrs. Cattell was sure convinced it was. ’Specially after her daughter vanished. And seeing her, how she changed before the end…” He trailed off and took a drag on his cigarette.

  “You weren’t convinced before?” Garth leans forward, elbows on his knees.

  “Heh. Who woulda believed it? Folks would just figure that them trappers made their own moonshine, so what happened might be embellished. But best to send it on, just in case someone might believe it. Not like anyone could ever find anything in this place anyway, after I’m gone.” He gazes up at the ceiling, which is shadowed in dark wood that smells like mildew. I look at this man in his tin can armor. I’m quite sure that nobody would believe him. I want to ask him about the armor, but I can’t think of an inoffensive way to do so.

  “We’re glad you did,” I say instead.

  His gaze comes back down, fixes on Amanda. “So you said it started again. Why are you dragging a Devourer around?”

  “Hey, she didn’t ask for this.” I edge closer to Amanda.

  “Never said she did.” He takes another drag on his cigarette, but doesn’t take his eyes off her. He looks at her like she’s a snake.

  “Is there anything else you can tell us? About why it happened the first time, or about how to stop them?” Garth manages to pull the man’s attention back.

  He smokes in silence for a moment. I watch the ghosts of his breath disappear into the water-stained ceiling. “It starts when Catfish Bob is pissed. Back then, it was the mill. Parked on his territory, his prime habitat. All that still water now churned up and disturbed. Today, I’m betting it’s because of the dam. It screws up the water, makes it shallow. Probably woke him up and screwed with all the little fish and muck he likes to eat. I figure that Bob is just like any other man. He wants to be left the hell alone.”

  Garth leans forward. “Okay. But how do we stop them?”

  “Well, you seem to be co-existing pretty well.” The old man blows smoke at Amanda, and her nose twitches.

  “They’re not all like Amanda. She’s special, somehow,” I say.

  “Yeah. Bob probably thinks she’s special, too.” He narrows his eyes at her.

  “Is she sp
ecial…like how Nora was special?” I ask.

  The old man’s head snaps around. “What do you know about Nora?”

  “Just what my grandmother told me. That she drowned. That her boyfriend went nuts.”

  The old guy frowns. “Bob loved Nora. He couldn’t let her leave town and chase a singing career. I remember seeing her down by the river, singing. And something dark moving just under the water. She had eyes like you.” He gestured with his cigarette toward Amanda, trailing ashes.

  Amanda’s brows draw together. “So he…drowned her?”

  “I don’t have any proof. I think she went willingly. There was something weird about the two of them.” He gives Amanda the side-eye.

  She squirms. “Is there a way to change back?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  She slumps and closes her eyes. I put my hand on her cold shoulder.

  “How do we stop the Devourers, then?” Garth demands.

  “You can kill ’em with fire. One by one, if you can. But it’ll keep spreading.”

  “Then what? How do we stop it?” My brother’s voice is full of frustration.

  The old man shrugs. “You gotta make things right with Bob. If Bob ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”

  Garth and I sit and chew on this, while Amanda gnaws on her lip.

  The old man seems to take pity on us. He stands up. “There is one thing that I didn’t give to the museum. Stay right there.” He takes his gun with him and clanks into the bowels of the house.

  I lock eyes with Amanda. I tap my lip. She stops chewing hers. Instead, she brings a strand of blond wig hair to her mouth and starts slurping on that.

  The old man comes back with a wad of newspaper. He places the package in the center of the kitchen table. He unwraps it, folding back the yellowed newsprint and spreading it open on the battered wood.

  “I kept it because it was cool,” he confesses.

  “No shit,” Garth agrees.

  A skull sits on the middle of the table, but it’s not like any skull I’ve ever seen before, neither in the museum nor in the Body Shop. It’s roughly human-shaped, with eye sockets, a jaw, and an empty nose hole. But that’s where the similarities end. The skull is elongated in the back, edged with broken prickly structures that look like fins. The cheekbones are exaggerated, like a sculpture of an H.R. Geiger creature. And the teeth in its mouth are jagged and serrated. Like Amanda’s teeth.